


Of those who once left and now do not know how to return

by awriterisaworld



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: House Stark, Sansa-centric, Stark family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 05:46:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11753301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awriterisaworld/pseuds/awriterisaworld
Summary: In another life it would hurt that almost no one wants her to be Sansa, now she can only feel relief. She wouldn't know how to play that part.





	Of those who once left and now do not know how to return

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first work of fanfiction. I have been lurking in different fandoms for a few years but have never dared to write something before. English is not my mother language so corrections are very welcome. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> I of course own nothing in this work.
> 
> The setting is a limbo between book and show canon.

Sansa thinks that if Arya can wear a thousand faces, Bran spring into other bodies and Jon die and be reborn and collect different names, then Sansa can do all of that wearing the only skin she has.

Her power is to turn into a mirror, show people what they want to see. Pride fills her and leaves her glowing. They only see what they want to see, and she is hundreds of different women everyday. Tiny variations that turn her in to someone else, into no one. Lord Stark's daughter, stern and dutiful, her mother's daughter, a loving niece. Lady of Winterfell, Queen in the North, little bird, wolf. 

Bran wants a mother and the sister who loved stories, Arya wants to be left in peace. Jon wants to know who he is and remembers little Sansa of lemoncakes and songs. Rickon likes to hear her sing, she is her mother's double. In another life it would hurt that almost no one wants her to be Sansa, now she can only feel relief. She wouldn't know how to play that part. 

Sansa doesn't like singing anymore, but the last time she didn't do something just because she didn't like it was before they cut her father's head and look where that lead to. She does what she needs to do. She plays lady, mother, sister, shadow, remembrance. She wants little now, to never leave Winterfell, to not be a pawn, for her siblings to heal, to be happy. She wants them easily controlled. How can she protect them if they don't listen to her? They may be warriors and godlike, but they don't know how to fight her side of the world of men. She will do what she must to keep them safe, happy.

They think they cannot feel happiness again, are burdened and drowned by the horrors of a lifetime. They think the Starks carry the worst of fates, the most loss. That they cannot recover after everything. But everyone has lost everything in this war, and the last one, and the one that came before that. When has their world ever known peace? There has always been sorrow. The Starks and Westeros have always known winter. Didn't the Long Night already happen? Didn't the dragons come and took their kingdom and had their dances and their wars? Didn't their father loose everything? A father and a brother and a sister and his future? 

Sansa knows that for all that she looks like her mother, in the end she is like her father. Their father lost everything, and still lived. For duty yes, like Sansa. But also because he knew that life went on. He didn't love his wife, his children and the north for duty. He didn't stay in the past and live in resentment and hate. He lived because he knew that was the only thing to do. Winter is coming, yes, but after winter comes spring. 

Sansa lives for many reasons. To die would mean she suffered for nothing. She could have thrown herself from a tower years ago. But she is past that now. Sansa doesn't wish for death like her siblings, she already died and was reborn. Or maybe she realized that after death life still continues. She lives to spite the gods, but mostly she lives for herself. There is only life and one can only live it.


End file.
